


Returns

by alesia



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, F/M, POV First Person, POV Original Character, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesia/pseuds/alesia
Summary: Now that you have it, what do you do with it?





	Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Gifts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4350782) by [alesia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesia/pseuds/alesia). 



> Originally posted on hlfiction.net.

It does not take Ben long to realize that I am exhausted. Once more he tells me to stop the car, but this time we switch seats right there in the middle of the empty highway. I settle down into the passenger bucket, still warm from his presence, and pull the fleece throw tight around my shoulders. He puts the top up before he gets back in, and I belatedly recognize that the weather has changed; that old December chill is setting in with a vengeance. Up above the moon hastens its trip towards the sea, falling until it seems the vault of the deeps will open up beneath it and swallow it whole.

"Shhh," he whispers as he tucks the fleece around me. "Get some sleep."

"But you're --" I'm not even sure what I'm protesting, but there's something -- oh yes. "It's not safe."

"The sword's in the undercarriage," he murmurs and soothes his palm over my forehead. "I won't do anything stupid, I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," I tell him, and then I drift off.

* * *

He wakes me with a kiss in the darkness, a long slow grapple between lips and tongues that is the single best way I know to greet the day while clothed. At last he pulls away with regret.

"Mmmm. That was nice," I whisper, not really wanting to open my eyes.

"I'd let you sleep in but we're in Alturas and I'm hungry."

"Wait a minute -- Alturas? I thought we were headed to Klamath Falls. Seacouver, right?"

"Plans change." He glances back and forth before continuing. "I heard over the emergency band that there're roadblocks in place at the state line."

"Shit." There goes that idea.

"I figured we have a better reason to be in Lakeview." Well, sure, it's our registered residence for the Camaro, even if old Missus Petrowski is renting the place from us right now. She'll be happy to see we're not dead, maybe even feed us breakfast. I must have voiced that last because suddenly Ben is waggling his eyebrows.

"We're having breakfast here, if you'll bother to get up." I perk up a little and focus on the building we're parked in front of. The Early Bird, complete with a faded giant robin, smiling worm in mouth, standing on the roof. The shadows cast by the lights inside leave it a dusky brown all over, giving it a sleepy haze. On our left is a big old Dodge truck with the full cab and half bed. Must be fifty years old at least. Its color is indistinguishable between the heavy layer of mud coating most of it and the poor ambient light obscuring the rest. Whoever said it's always darkest before the dawn knew what they were talking about.

"Here?" I yawn. "They have lousy coffee."

"But the gossip," and Ben practically  _beams_ , "is incomparable."

* * *

We're both right. They know us here. "What kept you?" Stef asks with a knowing smile before the door shuts, a blast of cold air following us in.

"Oh, leave them alone," Midori admonishes, her consonants clipped, as she pours a dour fellow at the middle right window table another cup of that crap they call coffee here at the Bird. A cattleman, by the state of his boots. I glance around and then turn my attention back to Stef; Ben is completing his own quick survey. Two state troopers in working black in the left corner booth, both eyeing us like we're guilty and they're just trying to figure out how, the rancher, and a couple of grade school kids in the booth closest to the door that're doing homework over pancakes, eggs, and bacon: Stef's boys Micah and Saul. Too early for the regular crowd.

"You just don't remember what it's like to be in love for the first time," she finishes as she strides back to the hot plates; the rancher was drinking decaf, I note absently. Must have heart trouble if he eats here on a regular basis.

"Sure I do," Stef smirks, and then she grabs Midori by the well-starched lapels of her blue and white shirt and kisses her silly. The cops cough and try to look at anything but the two middle-aged women making out right there at the register. The rancher smirks and lights a cigarette. Ben and I look at each other, shrug, and take our usual seats at the bar. Neither Stef nor Midori will bother to give us menus. They already know what we're going to order.

"Mooooom," Saul whines, and the two finally break it off. Childus interruptus: works every time. Midori gives a sideways smile and heads off to check on the cops.

"Greg!" Stef pounds on the wall of the kitchen and then starts juggling cups and the coffee pot, the sludge within sloshing as she balances everything. "A ham special, home fries, horseradish on the side, and a plate of biscuits and gravy, heavy on the gravy."

"And make it snappy," Ben calls out with obvious amusement. "We're on a tight schedule here." Stef pours us two cups of caffeinated mud and sets the sugar and creamer down between us. I make liberal use of both in attempt to make the stuff less poisonous.

Midori bends as she passes on her way back. "Don't encourage him," she warns Ben in a low voice, but she's not doing a very good job of suppressing her laughter.

"Who the hell eats horseradish with breakfast?" There is a glimpse of reddish cheeks and white beard as Greg peers out through the service window. "Oh, hey there, Emmy. Still hanging out with that old reprobate?"

"Reader, I married him," I yell back; Greg's hearing could be better, a  _lot_  better in fact. The women both explode into giggles at the random reference. Luckily the rest of Ben's wives are all dead, I don't think I could manage any attic revelations. I can feel eyes boring into my back; the troopers? the rancher?

"Always knew you had lousy taste," Greg shouts back, and then the face is gone. I look at Ben and smirk. He smirks back and then leans over and kisses me, slow and tender like in the car. Midori claps.

"You two are so cute," she says. "It's a pity you have to live up in that slum."

"It's not a slum, it's my ancestral homeland." I try to put some indignity into my voice but with the look she's giving me I'm guessing it didn't work.

"Right, and I'm from Beirut." The cops are watching  _her_  with suspicious eyes now; she ignores them. "No wonder you spend so much time travelling."

"There's no work here for me, 'Dori, you know that," Ben chides gently. "Or at least not enough to feed two."

"And maybe three or four someday, you think of that while you run around fixing other people's plumbing down south, smart guy?" Stef perches on the counter next to us and crosses her arms, looking down her nose at Ben.

I shake my head. This is not a subject open for debate for either of us, but Stef never fails to bring it up. "I don't think I'm cut out for being a parent." I catch Ben's eye. "Although I think you'd make an  _excellent_  father." He chokes on his coffee. I  _told_  him it was terrible stuff.

"So you're just in it for the sex, huh?" Midori laughs wickedly and eyeballs Stef suggestively. "I can appreciate that." The younger woman, in an uncharacteristic bout of shyness, blushes rosily. Ben doesn't do too badly himself.

"That's right," I deadpan. "Besides, less paperwork that way."

"Thank Congress for our constitutional right to partner anyone we please." Midori's voice is wry. Everyone in the room knows exactly where that right stops: where the paper trails and legal benefits begin. Ben and I don't  _want_  to get married in the traditional fashion; Midori and Stef  _can't_. But if we said it, especially if we  _complained_  about it, two very interested officers of the law are sitting  _right there_  ready and willing to make an arrest for seditious behavior. So we just shrug, trade glances, and  _know_  together.

It almost makes up for the coffee.

"What's the latest?" Ben asks casually as Stef sets our plates down in front of us. The troopers still haven't seen their food and from the sounds in the back it might be a long wait. I shift in my seat. Greg's playing a dangerous game here, but it's his place.

I attack my ham while they chat. Ben doesn't eat pork (this life his backstory is lapsed Reform Judaism) so it's not something I get to have very often. It tastes damn good. I dip a fry into the horseradish and tune back into their conversation. It hasn't gone very far, the usual litany of house prices, recent potlucks, and arrests, punctuated occasionally with theories on who's sleeping around and which kids are going to get in trouble  _this_  week. Small town talk. Ben eats one biscuit and pushes the gravy around on his plate. The officers watch and listen, but they don't come after us until we've paid and are on our way out the door.

"Your name, sir?"

"Benjamin Adam Schaefer."

He writes it down in his little notebook. "And you, miss?"

"Emily Vaughn Schaefer." That ought to be enough, but he asks the question anyway, and I can't not answer it. Too many records, too many suspicions, too much to lose. Play it cool, live to fight another day, all that scratch.

"Vaughn your maiden name?"

"No, that would be Wellers." I go on before he can ask the next question I know is coming. "Yes, as in Franklin Hannesey Wellers, who was my father." He looks taken aback. It's not common knowledge most places, but between Redding and Eugene I can't get away from it. "So unless you arrest people for their dead folks' crimes --" I can't go on. Ben is there, a steady solid presence at my side, his arm curved round my back. I clutch at his shoulder and let the tears come.

It seems to convince them that I'm harmless. Ha ha. Right now I'm about two dumb questions away from picking the Luger from Ben's jacket lining and filling them each with a clip or two. It's a happy thought, not a nice one, not a  _practical_  one, but happy nevertheless. Tweedledee picks at his partner's uniform and they go, a few meaningless platitudes left in their wake like so much glitzy trash.

"Well played," Ben murmurs into my hair as they drive off in their shiny new patrol car, assault rifles crossed between the seats.

"Played,  _hell_ ," I grouch. "Let's get out of here."

He doesn't argue.

* * *

Before we hit the road, though, we head over to the local grocer and pick up supplies. Ben gives me a little time to compose myself while he fills up the Camaro. I plaster a smile across my face and pop on into the tiny fabric store crammed into a single strip mall bay across the parking lot.

"Two yards of chamois, huh?" Maeve asks as she rings me up. "Plan on sewing up a vest or somethin'?"

I shake my head. "My last one's got holes in it, and you  _know_  how I feel about that car."

She sure does. I've bought chamois here before. This one isn't for the Camaro, though, it's for Ben's sword. Its current hiding place probably won't last through a concentrated search, and with a beheaded Federal agent on the news we can't afford any more slips. When I come out the car's parked in front of the service center and Ben is nowhere to be seen. I sit on the side of the hood, prop my feet up on the tire below, and watch the sun rise slow and colorful over the eastern mountains. It's gorgeous. It reminds me of the days I thought I'd go into geology, back before Pa got himself arrested and my scholarships were taken away.

"I never get tired of seeing that," he says from behind me as he slings a sack of goods and chattel into the passenger side well.

"I'd hope not." I look over my shoulder at him. The world is painted in pinks and purples and golds around us. "We set?"

"We are." He rests his arms on the soft roof of the cab and looks at me, his eyes serious and knowing, his face set blank. "Are you ready to dance past hungry lions?"

"Sure, but we've got a package to deliver first." He arches a brow at me in a silent query and I kick the chassis a couple of times. "You know."

"Oh,  _that_  package," he says dryly.

"Yeah, that package, mister," and I kick the chassis again. "Unless you planned on giving a demonstration?"

"My days of protest and proclamation are over." He smirks. "In fact, I think I may retire."

"Time to bury the hatchet, huh?" I am _not_ letting this go, it's too much fun.

"Or something," he agrees placidly. "Would you rather stick around here all day?"

"Whine, whine, whine," and I slide down the hood. 

**Author's Note:**

> I never did get much of the anarchist commune in an old ICBM silo in Montana fleshed out, beyond the tilapia and watercress tanks, and Emily's teenage graverobbing also refused to cooperate. I don't think I have any more apocalyptic dystopias left in me these days, despite (or perhaps because of) the global situation, so this story is officially marked complete.


End file.
